Art

If you’re in London over the next few days be sure to stop along and see Ergodos at the Indie Label Market. I made up a limited run of cassettes for them to take specially to this event. They’ll also have all the great music from their catalogue along with some snazzy new vinyl bags. Congrats as well to the guys for securing a global distribution deal with Cargo recently too.

Here’s a video from Ergodos of the Smacht launch at the Lutherhaus in Dublin. Thanks to everyone who came along on the night and to the musicians and Ergodos for doing such a great job! I’ve listed the full thank yous to the album along with the musicians from both launch events below.

Smacht is the fruit of two years of work and the culmination of lots of hard work and many serendipitous opportunities working with lots of wonderful, talented and generous people. The release is the result of lots of tinkering and experimenting and thinking. Of throwing different ideas at what I think a release could and should be. And figuring out what it was that I loved about the music I’ve bought. The music was recorded by Kate Ellis, Robin Panter, Adrian Hart, Cora Lunny and Mobius Percussion along with a remix by producer Sean Byrne. It will be out on the 2 April with Ergodos and there are launch events in Amsterdam, Dublin and New York.

This is the result of an afternoon taking photos with Kim Raad. I gave her the brief of making me look like Salvador Dali and then spent the afternoon pretending my Super 8 camera was a gun. During the shoot I managed to inhabit the characters of James Bond, Tony Montana and Charlie’s Angels. We got more than a few funny looks and even made two guys jump back in horror. It was a wonderfully silly day.

This video is of a performance I created with scenographer Hannah Krauss. The piece was the result of a collaboration over several months to make a piece of experimental theatre – combining music and scenography. The final piece was performed at de Theaterschool, Amsterdam on the 1 May 2015. For those especially interested a video from an earlier stage in the process can be seen in this post.

One of the first books I remember reading was Truckers. It was the first experience I had of getting wrapped up in a story, the fear and joy and anticipation and ecstasy of the world create in my mind. It was one of the first times my imagination was set free to run loose and animate the written word and was the beginning of a life-long relationship with Terry Pratchett.

It’s hard to overstate the love, bordering on obsession, I have for Pratchett’s novels. I began with Truckers and then every morning from the age of four to eight, on the 30 minute journey to school, my brother and I would listen to Tony Robinson narrating The Bromeliad Trilogy,The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic. Pretty much every night since then, to this day, I read a Pratchett novel as I’m going to sleep.

There’s humanity and sorrow and joy in his writing. They forced me to think about the way that I want to live and the person I want to be. Read more

I’ve been working on a piece in collaboration with scenographer Hannah Krauß for the last while. The project is an interdepartmental project between the Conservatorium van Amsterdam and de Theaterschool. In it a composer and a scenographer are paired up to make something. We’re working on a stage piece together combining music with set design and have decided to focus creating a piece from everyday objects which make sound, like table-fans, record players and balloons. We’ve been working together for about a month now throwing around ideas and are at about the half way point in the project. I’ve put together a video with some of the things we’ve been working with so far. It was a fun video to make and I hope you enjoy.

I’m interested to look back on this video when we’ve finished to see where our explorations lead. Just out of personal curiosity about where the collaborative process of making something can lead. Join us for the live staging at de Theaterschool at the end of April to see what we come up with.